Cities must invest in cycling infrastructure: Pardeshi

Mumbai:

Additional chief secretary (urban development) Praveen Pardeshi, who has headed the civic corporations of both Mumbai and Pune, felt that congested, well-off cities of Maharashtra like Mumbai, Pune, Thane, needed to invest in cycling infrastructures in the form of dedicated cycling underpasses and bypasses on busy junctions to allow seamless cycle commute. Other less congested cities could follow these templates with much lesser investment, he felt.  

Speaking at a webinar organised by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) on Cycling: A green means to Covid recovery, Pardeshi felt that while Mumbai might need about Rs 200-300 crores of investment, Pune could do with just Rs 100 crores, way below the kind of money spent on flyovers, to facilitate seamless travel for cars. 

Pardeshi also suggested dedicated cycle lanes for school children between schools and catchment residential areas, strongly policed during specific hours to encourage safe cycling among students.   

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Terming the cycling community in India as weak, he urged them to galvanize together as strong stakeholders to reclaim their spaces on the roads like their European counterparts, where cyclists ferociously defended their cycling lanes. Pardeshi felt that they had a long struggle ahead with the car lobby not seeming to give up its right to vacate its stake on the roads anytime soon. 

Reminiscing his time in Pune, Pardeshi said that even as a municipal commissioner, he would cycle to office at least once a week without any cars in front or behind. Though he regretted that Pune had come to become an uncyclable city today from being a completely cycling city two decades back where “everyone cycled everywhere for everything.”  

Pardeshi felt that the way forward was to ensure legal mandate for cycling lanes within a city by inserting the provision in a city’s development plans. About 20% of urban India commutes by cycle and the union minister of housing and urban affairs Hardeep Puri said he seeks to make Indian cities more safe and fun for cycling and that the motto of the National Urban Transport Policy was to move people not vehicles.

Mumbai’s bicycle mayor Firoza Suresh (India has 44 bicycle mayors) felt that the major hurdle with cycling in Mumbai was unavailability of smooth, non-potholed roads or dedicated lanes, as also lack of safe parking places for bicycles. Working towards the goal of getting 50 % of the city’s commuting on cycles by 2030, Firoza felt that only high ridership could bring in infrastructural changes in the city. Mumbai witnessed a 272% hike in cycle ridership from 2016-18 as per a Strava app survey, though there is no precise data available on cyclists in city, she revealed. Mumbai had recently introduced Yulu cycling for last mile connectivity from metro station to homes at certain places.

A much touted Rs 400 crores ambitious 39 km cycle track project parallel to Tansa water pipeline between Mulund and Wadala, is yet to be completed. Kunal Kumar, joint secretary and Mission Director (Smart Cities Mission, GoI), felt that unless we promote walking and cycling in cities, we will lose them to pollution and health problems.

The ITDP has recommended state promotion of cycle sharing and rental cycle system as also state support to encourage cycling among economically weaker sections apart from initiatives like car-free Sundays to remove stigma of cycling. Cycling, the ITDP felt was a perfect post-Covid mode of transport since it ensured social distancing, had zero carbon emission and also reduced strain on public transportation system. –By Hepzi Anthony

(Hepzi is senior freelance journalist based in Mumbai She writes on civic and administrative issues.)